12 Extraordinary Movie Scenes That Were Improvised Off The Cuff

Most of the movie scenes that you see on screen are scripted. However, so genius actors improvise some scenes that make them extraordinary. These scenes, though unscripted, made history and stood among the rest.

Here are 12 Extraordinary Movie Scenes that were improvised off the cuff.

1. The Silence of The Lambs (1991) – “The Hisss”

The famous hissing sound made by Hopkins when psychopathic Dr. Hannibal Lecter is telling a story to the FBI agent about his cannibalistic ventures brought the horrifying scene to a new level altogether. Though Hopkins got less than 25 minutes on screen, he got the Academy award.

The original script of the movie scene only said: “Travis talks to himself in the mirror”. Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) took complete advantage of the character’s neurotic state and repeatedly says “You talkin’ to me?” while looking into the mirror.

In one of the scenes, Will Hunting (Matt Damon)’s therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) decides to tell him a personal story which was actually made up by Sean Maguire during the scene. The Matt Damon’s laugh in the scene is absolutely genuine. You can see the camera shaking a bit which suggests that even the cameraman laughed while filming it.

When Mayor Garcia (Nestor Carbonell) promotes Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to the position of commissioner, the officers applaud the decision. At the same time, Heath Ledger begins to slowly clap without changing his facial expressions. The entire scene was improvised by joker is a dark, brilliant way.

When Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) pick up a hitchhiker on a road trip, they have no idea about the hitchhiker being hitman Joe Mentalino (Mike Starr). After some time, Lloyd asks, “Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” and then yell in his ear.

In one of the scenes where the Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) sees the deadly shark for the very first time, he says the very famous line ” You’re gonna need a bigger boat” which was completely improvised.

The original script only had “Leave the gun”. However, Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano) decided to add a bit of humour to it by saying one of the most iconic lines “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

In this movie, Peter Seller has improvised a lot of scenes. The most famous one in the final line of the film, “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” where he gets out of his chair forgetting he was supposed to be disabled.